> <xsl:template match="covers">
> 	[<xsl:apply-templates select="normalize-space(covers)" 
> />] </xsl:template>
> 
> Currently this doesn't pull anything from the covers tag, all 
> I get is empty [].

Your context node is a "covers" element. Does this have a "covers" child? If
not, you want normalize-space(.) (or you can omit the argument, it defaults
to the context node).

By the way, please call it an element and not a tag. An element usually has
two tags, one at the start and one at the end.

Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/